Friday, December 01, 2006

Yes, yes, we all know what a vile charlatan this clownish "faith healer" is. But to see what this son of a bitch does with your own eyes, to see how cold-bloodedly he exploits the hope of the truly desperate and pathetic while whooping it up in $10 million mansions and $4000-a-night hotel suites, just makes you sick to your stomach. This kind of hard-hitting exposé, from the CBC news program The Fifth Estate, is the kind of badass investigative journalism America hasn't seen since the Watergate scandal, and which we're not likely to see in this day and age, when conservative mouthpieces own the U.S. airwaves and they're only too willing to pander to the most egregious forms of religious lunacy. This runs 42 minutes but it's worth every one. Bask in how low one man can go. All in the name of Jesus.

Wow. My initial reaction is to be pissed at Hinn. And while I think that's justified, I can't help but be even more angry at the throngs of people who are all too eager to throw their minds and their money out the window. After all, if it weren't for them, Hinn would probably be working as an assistant janitor somewhere.

Unfortunately people like Hinn prey on the very desperate. When a loved one is very ill (in danger of death), those in charge of care are often pressured by others to "do all they can" and told things like "you should at least try X--what could it hurt?"

I have a loved one with a serious illness, and I know that feeling of wanting to find _something_ to help. It's hard work to wade through research papers and articles. And tons of people will come and give you articles or tell you about products they heard of or know about (or even sell themselves!). 90 percent of what is thrown at you is crap or over-sensationalized data.

Not everyone is able to override the very strong emotional drive (and family pressure) to do _anything_ to help a dying loved one. It's hard to look at a person that ill and say, "We're not going to buy this--there's no evidence this works." You don't want to come across as uncaring or, worse, unwilling to "spend the money" on X--when others are insisting it "could" save someone's life. If this person dies, you could, literally, have family members hating you and holding this against you for years to come.

Faith healers aren't the only people praying on the desperate. If I remember right, that's part of what set off James Randi--seeing desperate people taken advantage of. Many otherwise rational people will do things they'd never normally do in hopes of saving the life of a loved one, or assuaging the guilt that they didn't "try" everything possible. It's not always about being stupid. Sometimes it's about sheer desperation. And that's what makes Hinn even more destestable in my opinion.

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PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.